Construction

Crusoe has filed plans with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation for two data center buildings in Jayton, Kent County, each spanning 759,260 square feet, with a combined site investment of $4.8 billion. The buildings are classified as 'spur buildings' of Project Hyper, linking them to Crusoe's larger development in Childress, where three buildings totaling 806,360 square feet represent a $2.4 billion investment each. Construction in Jayton is set to begin in January 2027, with the buildings expected to go live in May and July 2029. Combined with the Childress site, the full Project Hyper investment across both locations would reach $12 billion.

Crusoe officially confirmed on September 28 that it is developing the Goodnight Campus in Claude, Armstrong County, Texas, for Google, with ground broken in June 2025. According to Aterio Research, the campus will feature seven buildings offering more than 1GW of capacity across two phases, with a total expected investment of $29 billion. Separately, Crusoe's cloud business has secured a $65 million annual agreement with Thinking Machines Lab and an undisclosed contract with Perplexity, pushing Crusoe Managed Inference's ARR above $100 million.

Digital Realty announced on September 22 a plan to build a cable landing station inside its LAX12 data center in El Segundo, California, developed in partnership with subsea infrastructure specialist Assured Communications. The station is designed as a turnkey solution for subsea cable operators and is targeted at Asia-Pacific to North America routes, with operations expected to begin in 2028. Craig Waldrop, Digital Realty's vice president of strategy and business development, described the project as the company's first turnkey cable landing solution and said the goal is to create a more direct connection between arriving subsea capacity and terrestrial networks, clouds, and carriers. The carrier-neutral design means cable operators will not be tied to a single network or cloud provider.

HyperDC Pty Ltd has filed a planning permit application with the Victorian government for a 400MW IT capacity data center campus in Moorabool, located at 715 Ballan Road roughly 75 kilometers west of Melbourne. The proposed MBL1 site spans 39 hectares of largely vacant land near Geelong. Gerard Adamsons, listed as a company director on LinkedIn and previously with residential developer Villawood Properties, is connected to the project. The site sits close to the 300MW Victorian Big Battery facility and AusNet Services' Moorabool Terminal Station.

Associated Builders and Contractors says the U.S. construction industry needs to attract 349,000 net new workers in 2026 and 456,000 in 2027 just to keep pace with demand, citing the ongoing artificial intelligence infrastructure buildout as one driver. No trade is harder to fill than electricians: 81 percent of firms with electrician openings reported difficulty filling them in the AGC and NCCER 2026 Workforce Survey, released in September, the highest difficulty rate of any craft tracked, ahead of mechanics (79 percent), HVAC technicians (77 percent), and concrete workers (76 percent). The survey's own framing put it plainly: construction workforce shortages remain acute even as data centers strain the labor supply.

Electrical work makes up an estimated 45 to 70 percent of a data center's total construction cost, and hundreds of electricians can be on a single site at peak. Microsoft president Brad Smith has called the shortage “perhaps the single biggest challenge” to the company's U.S. data center expansion, telling a Senate Commerce Committee hearing in 2025 that Microsoft has electricians commuting as far as 75 miles or temporarily relocating from across the country just to keep projects staffed. Smith has estimated the country needs roughly half a million new electricians over the next decade, against a current base of about 780,000 active electricians and another 80,000 open positions today.

Age is compounding the gap. About one-fifth of electricians are over 55, according to ABC, and Smith has put the share of union electricians between 50 and 70 years old at nearly 30 percent. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 9 percent job growth for electricians through 2034, faster than the average occupation, with roughly 81,000 openings a year, and cites the AI-driven data center boom explicitly as one reason electricity demand, and the workforce needed to build for it, keeps rising. The cost of getting this wrong is steep: a month's construction delay on a 60-megawatt data center can cost a developer roughly $14.2 million in lost lease revenue and penalties, according to research firm STL Partners, and a 2026 Kelly staffing survey found 90 percent of data center operators call staffing shortages a critical constraint, with a quarter of data center personnel hired away by competitors every year.

Labor unions remain the most established pipeline, and data center construction has visibly swelled their ranks. IBEW Local 24, which covers the Baltimore-Washington corridor, has roughly doubled its annual apprenticeship class from around 100 to 120 apprentices to a 230-person class this fall, with plans to grow it to 275 to 300, business representative Rico Alba Carries said; the local has added about 1,000 members, roughly 50 percent growth, over the past several years. A single project in Frederick County, Maryland, has kept 700 to 800 electricians on site plus about 150 more staffing a prefabrication shop, according to union leaders. That pipeline still runs on a five-year apprenticeship timeline, a pace the AI buildout's own schedule cannot compress.

Data center operators and their contractors have built shorter, targeted programs alongside the union track. Compass Datacenters and Meridian Community College in Mississippi launched a tuition-free, 14-week program in 2026 tied to Compass's roughly $10 billion campus investment there, teaching hands-on mechanical, electrical, and IT infrastructure work with no prior degree required; Compass CEO Chris Crosby called it “tailor-made to ensure Meridian has the workforce to meet that future.” In central Ohio, home to more than 50 data centers run by companies including Amazon, Meta, and Cardinal Health, Columbus State Community College offers a Data Center Technician certificate backed by Amazon-funded scholarships of $1,000 per semester. Microsoft's Datacenter Academy has built a similar model at more than 20 community colleges and technical schools across the country, donating server racks and networking equipment for hands-on labs and running roughly 16-week internships into roles like datacenter technician and critical environment technician.

For workers, the opening is real. The median electrician earns $62,350 a year, according to BLS, without the four-year degree and student debt a comparable salary would typically require elsewhere, and entry-level data center technician postings often start lower, commonly cited in the $18 to $26 an hour range, as a lower-barrier way into the same industry.

Even so, the programs now running are measured in the hundreds of students at a time, against a national gap counted in the hundreds of thousands. How fast the buildout continues may depend less on how many GPUs a company can buy than on how quickly the country can train the people who wire, cool, and maintain the buildings those GPUs sit in.

Goodman Group has withdrawn its development application for Project Mars, a planned 90MW data center campus in the Lane Cove area of Sydney, New South Wales, after commencing the planning process in March 2025. The company had intended to invest AU$1.2 billion ($725 million) in two two-story buildings totaling 18,830 square meters at 12 Mars Road. Goodman cited significant evolution in the policy and regulatory environment for large-scale data center development, as well as feedback from the local planning process and community views. The company still has several other Sydney data center projects in various stages, including a 90MW redevelopment of the former ABC television studios, a 126MW facility in Guildford West, a 135MW project in Macquarie Park, and a planned 90MW facility on a former Eaton warehouse site in Mascot.

Microsoft has filed an application with the US Army Corps of Engineers to build a data center campus called MNZ07 Wellington at 13490 University Boulevard in Prince William County, Virginia. The project calls for two one-story data center buildings and an on-site substation on 123 acres, situated south of Interstate 66 and north of Wellington Road. Microsoft purchased the 124-acre site in 2024 from local landowner Chuck Kuhn for $465.5 million, and a separate application was filed with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality in July. The company says the campus is needed to address expanding customer demand for cloud platform services in the region.

Google announced it is exploring a new data center project in Lea County, New Mexico, located in the state's southeast corner on the Texas border. The company did not share location specifics, facility size, or a project timeline. This would be Google's first self-built development in New Mexico; the company already has projects in neighboring Arizona and Texas. New Mexico has a relatively small data center market compared to those two states, with existing operators including Stack, Meta, Csquare, and H5.

March 2026 brought a wave of major data center transactions and expansions across North America and Europe. AMD announced a $100 billion agreement to supply up to 6 GW of AI capacity to Meta, while Microsoft secured approval for 15 new data centers at the former Foxconn site in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, with a taxable construction value exceeding $13 billion. Meta broke ground on a 1 GW, $10 billion campus in Lebanon, Indiana, and Equinix and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board acquired Iceland-based atNorth from Partners Group for $4 billion. In Europe, the European Data Centre Association's 2026 State of European Data Centers report forecasts cumulative investment of 176 billion euros between 2026 and 2031, warning that grid readiness rather than capital will constrain future capacity growth.

Aligned Data Centers has broken ground on Project Phoenix, a 2GW campus in Shippingport, Beaver County, Pennsylvania, located within the 660-acre Shippingport Industrial Park about 30 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. The campus will consist of three facilities adjacent to the former Bruce Mansfield coal plant site, now being redeveloped by Frontier Group of Companies into a natural gas energy campus capable of supplying up to 3.6GW of behind-the-meter capacity. Aligned CEO Andrew Schaap said the project will use a dedicated on-site power source rather than the local electrical grid. Aligned was acquired last year for $40 billion by a consortium including the AI Infrastructure Partnership, MGX, and BlackRock-owned Global Infrastructure Partners.

Microsoft has filed a Developments of Regional Impact application with the Georgia Department of Community Affairs for a project called ATL50, located at 5235 Stonewall Tell Road in Union City, southwest of Atlanta in Fulton County. The plan calls for two three-story buildings totaling 910,000 square feet on an 88-acre parcel, with the site expected to launch in 2032. Microsoft already has a significant presence across Georgia, with facilities in Fairburn, Douglasville, Palmetto, Rome, East Point, and Tyrone. A separate project reportedly in development with EdgeConneX on the north side of South Fulton Parkway in Union City is said to total 324MW across 2.1 million square feet.

Google announced its largest single investment in Europe: at least €13 billion ($15.1 billion) in AI infrastructure across four locations in Finland over the next two years. The investment covers data centers, energy infrastructure, grid upgrades, and renewable energy projects. Google also signed a 22-year purchase agreement with Finnish utility Fortum for up to 50% of the energy from one of Finland's nuclear plants, which Google says would not have continued operating beyond 2030 without the deal. Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo welcomed the commitment, calling investment attraction a top government priority.

Microsoft is extending a nature-inspired design approach, first tested at its Middenmeer data center in Noord-Holland in 2022, to more than 20 data center locations across the United States and Germany, and says the practice will be incorporated into all new U.S. data center projects. The approach draws on biomimicry principles to restore wetlands, plant native vegetation, rebuild stream corridors, and create pollinator habitats, with strategies customized to local conditions through an ecological design catalog. A completed example in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, the Chase City Conservancy, opened in April 2025 and protects more than 230 acres, including over 8 acres of wetlands, more than 25,000 planted trees, and over 3 miles of publicly accessible walking trails. Microsoft uses an Ecosystem Intelligence platform to measure biodiversity, water quality, and noise reduction outcomes over time.

Bell Canada has announced it will quadruple the planned capacity of its data center campus in Saskatchewan, a significant expansion of a project that was already one of the largest announced in the province. The decision reflects accelerating demand from enterprise and hyperscaler customers in Canada's western provinces. Specific megawatt figures for the expanded campus were not disclosed in available reporting.

Meta plans to expand its data center campus in Eagle Mountain, Utah, adding capacity to a site already hosting significant compute infrastructure, according to Data Center Dynamics. Eagle Mountain has become one of Meta's key US buildout locations as the company scales AI training and inference workloads. Specific capacity figures and investment totals were not disclosed in the initial filing.

Thor Equities has submitted plans for a 150-megawatt data center in Georgia. The project represents the firm's latest move into large-scale data center development in the Southeast United States. Georgia has become an increasingly competitive data center market as developers seek alternatives to capacity-constrained Northern Virginia.

Data Center Frontier examines a recurring challenge in large-scale data center construction: hardware arriving on-site before civil, electrical, or mechanical infrastructure is ready to receive it. The analysis highlights how early equipment delivery can mask deeper project delays and create storage, warranty, and commissioning risks. Project managers and developers are urged to treat equipment arrival dates as independent from overall schedule progress.

Keel is consolidating three existing Bitcoin mining facilities into one combined high-performance computing and AI campus, according to Stock Titan. The move reflects a broader industry trend of repurposing cryptocurrency infrastructure for AI workloads, which command higher margins and more stable long-term contracts. Specific capacity figures and the campus location were included in the announcement.

Multiple technology firms are planning billion-dollar AI data center investments in Patagonia, drawn by the region's cool climate, hydroelectric power, and available land. The projects represent an emerging frontier for hyperscale infrastructure outside the traditional Northern Hemisphere corridors. Specific company names and exact investment totals were not fully disclosed in available details, but the scale and geographic novelty of the announcements mark a shift in how the industry approaches site selection for power-intensive AI workloads.

GLP, the logistics and digital infrastructure firm, has started development of a 200MW data center in Foshan, Guangdong province, China. The project adds significant scale to GLP's data center portfolio in Asia and positions Foshan as a node in the Pearl River Delta's growing digital infrastructure corridor. No timeline or total investment figure was reported in available details.

An unnamed joint venture has announced plans for a 54MW data center in the Dallas, Texas market, according to Data Center Dynamics. Dallas continues to attract new capacity announcements as demand from enterprise and cloud tenants outpaces available supply in established Texas markets. No project cost or timeline was specified in available reporting.

A data center in Dowagiac, Michigan, has moved forward with expansion plans and signed an agreement to purchase additional land, according to the Michigan Advance. Specific acreage and purchase price were not disclosed in the snippet, but the move signals continued growth at the facility. The expansion comes amid broader scrutiny of data center development in Michigan, where polling indicates residents want greater transparency about such projects.

Hyperscale Data has ceased cryptocurrency mining operations at its Michigan data center, according to Data Center Dynamics. The company has not publicly confirmed what workloads, if any, will replace the mining operations at the facility. The exit follows a broader industry pattern of crypto miners converting or selling facilities as AI compute demand creates new revenue opportunities.

SemiAnalysis published an analysis pushing back on widely circulated claims that approximately half of 2026 US data center capacity has been canceled, arguing the characterization misrepresents project pipeline data. The piece examines how projects are classified, contending that delays and deferrals are being conflated with outright cancellations. The distinction matters because it affects how investors, utilities, and policymakers plan for near-term infrastructure demand.

The University of Michigan has chosen a site for a new computing center connected to Los Alamos National Laboratory, according to Michigan Advance. The facility is intended to support high-performance computing and scientific research workloads. Specific capacity, cost, and timeline figures were included in the announcement. The project represents an intersection of academic research infrastructure and national laboratory computing needs, a segment of the market distinct from commercial hyperscaler buildout.

Cerebras has started construction on a 165MW data center in Mikkeli, Finland, marking a significant expansion of AI compute infrastructure into the Nordic region. The facility is tied to Cerebras's push to scale its AI chip and inference platform beyond the United States. Finland's cool climate and access to renewable hydropower make it a competitive location for high-density AI workloads.

Nordic data center operator atNorth has announced plans for a 350MW campus in Norway, adding to its existing footprint across Iceland, Sweden, and Finland. The project would be one of the largest single-campus developments in the Nordic region, which has attracted hyperscaler and AI infrastructure investment due to cool climates and access to renewable hydropower. No construction start date or capital figure was disclosed in initial reports.

The Data Center Frontier Technology Summit 2026 featured industry executives describing a sector-wide transition from project planning and permitting to active construction execution across North America and Europe. Speakers pointed to accelerating groundbreakings, compressed timelines driven by AI demand, and persistent shortages in electrical equipment and skilled labor as defining the current cycle. No single project dollar figures were disclosed, but attendees described pipeline volumes as the largest in the industry's history.

CBRE's North America Data Center Trends, H2 2025 report found that despite record levels of new data center construction underway across North America, absorption rates are outpacing deliveries and vacancy rates remain at historic lows. Markets including Northern Virginia, Phoenix, and Chicago are adding millions of square feet of capacity, yet pre-leasing activity is filling space before buildings open. The supply-demand gap is pushing rents higher and extending lead times for available powered shell.

OpenAI is moving forward with plans to build what is described as the world's largest AI data center in Ohio, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. The project is part of OpenAI's broader Stargate infrastructure initiative and would represent a significant expansion of the company's domestic compute footprint. Specific power capacity, acreage, and investment figures tied to the Ohio site were detailed in the report.

Pre-construction work has begun on a Microsoft data center in Vaasa, Finland, according to Data Center Dynamics. The project represents Microsoft's continued geographic expansion in the Nordic region, where cold climates reduce cooling costs and renewable energy is more accessible. Vaasa is a smaller industrial city, and the project will bring significant infrastructure investment to the area.

Armada has launched a modular data center product called Orion, rated at 10MW, designed for rapid deployment in locations where traditional construction timelines are not feasible. Modular systems like Orion target edge deployments, defense applications, and markets where grid connectivity is limited. The product competes in a growing segment as operators seek faster paths to compute capacity amid constrained hyperscale construction schedules.

Alcoa is marketing 10 aluminum smelting facilities to data center developers, according to Data Center Dynamics. The plants offer large power allocations, existing heavy electrical infrastructure, and industrial land that can be repurposed for digital workloads. Smelters typically carry grid connections in the hundreds of megawatts, making them attractive to hyperscalers and AI operators facing interconnection delays. No buyer or price has been disclosed.

Switch has submitted development filings to build a data center on the site of a former Pittsburgh-area racetrack, according to Data Center Dynamics. The company, known for large-scale campus developments in Nevada and other markets, has not disclosed the planned capacity or investment figure for the Pennsylvania project. Pittsburgh has attracted growing attention from data center developers seeking access to power infrastructure and fiber in secondary markets.

Sphere 3D has announced plans for a 50-megawatt data center in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, according to Data Center Dynamics. The facility would represent a significant new addition to Kentucky's data center landscape, a state that has been working to attract technology infrastructure investment. No construction timeline or total capital figure was disclosed in the report.

Zerra DC has submitted plans for a large data center campus in Queensland, Australia, according to Data Center Dynamics. Specific capacity figures and investment amounts were not disclosed in the filing. The project adds to growing hyperscaler and independent operator expansion across the Asia-Pacific region, where land and power availability remain competitive advantages.

S&P Global reports that hyperscalers are continuing to expand data center capacity worldwide despite rising geopolitical friction affecting supply chains and permitting in key regions. The report highlights that demand from AI workloads is outweighing political risk calculations for major operators. Companies are diversifying site selection across multiple continents to reduce single-country exposure.

Galaxy has acquired a 500-acre campus in McGregor, Texas, marking a significant expansion of its data center footprint. The company did not disclose a purchase price in the announcement, but the scale of the site positions it among the larger single-campus land holdings in the state. McGregor, located near Waco, has attracted data center interest due to its proximity to Texas grid infrastructure and available land. The acquisition signals Galaxy's intent to develop large-scale compute capacity in central Texas.

Applied Digital Corporation has signed a 210 megawatt lease at its Delta Forge 2 facility, adding a fifth campus to its AI Factory franchise model. The deal expands the company's footprint for high-density AI compute hosting and follows a series of large-load agreements with cloud and AI customers. Applied Digital said the lease reinforces the scalability of its campus-based model for enterprise AI infrastructure.

PowerPlay AI has announced a 400 megawatt behind-the-meter AI data center development in West Texas through a joint venture with Neocloud. The project is structured to generate its own power on-site, bypassing grid interconnection queues that have delayed competing projects. Behind-the-meter configurations are gaining traction as developers seek to escape utility bottlenecks in high-demand markets like Texas.